


In Death

by petcheetah



Series: August Prompts 2019 [10]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Immortality, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-19 14:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20210950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petcheetah/pseuds/petcheetah
Summary: “Death isn’t the worst thing that could happen, you know that. In Death, I will learn. And then I’ll be back, and I’ll be stronger.”Edward Elric learns something about himself.





	In Death

Without his alchemy, it was difficult for him to go about helping people in a way that counted. Still, it was a part of him now after years of working for the state. There would always be a part of him that was unable to let go of a situation where someone was in trouble, he just had to use different ways to deal with it now.

Winry was scared for him a lot of the time. She told him again and again that he didn’t need to work for the military anymore, that now that Al had his body back there was no reason for him to go and fight other people’s battles. She told him over and over that there was enough alchemists and military people. That he had sacrificed enough. That it was time for him to come  _ home  _ and to stop worrying about the state of the world. He had already helped to save it once. He didn’t need to continue to do so.

But it was an impossible thing to try and do. Edward would always want to help people, and all Winry could do was support him and make sure that he wasn’t going to mess up his automail the way he had in his first years of the military.

No one in the military thought he should stay either, but the Colonel-turned-Fuhrer had only sighed when Ed came to his office demanding to be signed on as a full member of the military instead of a state alchemist. Mustang had given him something better. Ed was given full range to go out on investigations of his own jurisdictions. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and, in a separate conversation with Mustang, told that he could use Hughes old room for whatever he needed. The knowing look on Mustang’s face was a comfort after weeks of people telling him that he should stop and relax and be  _ safe _ . Mustang knew what it was like to lose a part of himself but still want to fight for the world he was apart of and the people in it. Ed couldn’t have been more grateful.

While he spent the first few months after the battle with Father in Resembool, he was gone just as quickly. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be around his family now that they were fixed, but he had begun to get anxious with the lack of things to do around such small town. He felt too old now, too weary. He hadn’t even reached eighteen yet but he felt like he had lived a lifetime, and just standing around doing nothing left him high strung. He left for Central only a few weeks before it was going to reach half a year of him staying in the town. Winry looked like she was breaking when he stood by the door of the train but it truly didn’t feel like he had a choice. Saving people, travelling the world, it was something deeply ingrained in him, flowing through his body in a way that couldn’t be ignored.

It wasn’t even a week after his return to the centre of the action that he left on a self-assigned mission to a small mining town in the far east of Amestris. Mustang had looked over his reasons and gave him confirmation, and not long after Ed was on a train on the way to the town.

It was meant to be a simple investigation. While he didn’t want to give up on fighting, on helping people, he wasn’t about to go from a way with Father to another fight. Instead of a simple investigation, he got a ruler who had accumulated such a fighting force that the whole town was being subjugated. If Ed had his alchemy, it wouldn’t have been hard to beat them up. But all he had now was a metal leg, his fighting skills, and a newly registered gun strapped to his belt. The moment he stepped off that train, he was recognised. His name may forever hold weight after everything, but this was one of the times that who he was instantly had him in a horrible position.

He was knocked out before he even left the train station. He woke up in a damp cell with his blood staining the floor, a spear right through his chest. There was no one around him. No taunting, no monologuing. An abrupt difference from the usual.

There was far too much blood on the floor.

He should still be out. Or, and his heart pounded at the thought, he should very well be  _ dead _ .

With great difficulty he looked down at the spear, and he had to swallow back a scream as he saw the exact spot that it was in. That was right in, with exact precision, his heart.

There was no  _ way. _ It didn’t make sense. For all it terrified him at the idea that he should be dead, and that it may have happened at the very first mission he went on upon his return to the military, this didn’t make  _ sense. _ There was no way for him to be alive, but here he was. He could hear the loud thumping of his heart in his chest, which was just as impossible.

He didn’t know how long he was inside that cell, freaking out internally. Screaming at the idea of not being dead after a spear to the heart. Hoping to everything that existed that he could get out of this without dying. That he could see Al and Winry and everyone again and that he wasn’t about to die in the middle of nowhere.

Hours must have passed before someone walked past the door, and Ed was resigned to the fact that he  _ definitely  _ should have died the moment the spear had pierced his heart. His mind had already gone through all the possibilities and after hours of contemplation settled on one. The only one that could make sense in this kind of situation. However much he wished it wasn’t true.

When they walked passed the door, they glanced inside, and he watched as their eyes grew wide in shock before pulling open the door with hurried movements. There was no panic there, just an irrepressible anger. Ed had no chance to react as they flung themselves forwards and pushed the spear even further into his chest with so much anger in their expression.

The pain shot through Ed,  _ so much pain,  _ but there was no black spots in his vision and still he could breathe with an ease that shouldn’t be possible.

“How— you should be–” They said as they watched Ed just blink at them. Ed made his decision.

He pushed himself forwards on the spear, the end of the weapon pushing through his body with a disgusting noise he forced himself to ignore. He put on a shit-eating grin and found a sick sort of pleasure in the way they flinched back.

“Death isn’t the worst thing that could happen to me, you know? I’ve been through  _ far  _ worse. In death, i’ll only come back stronger. And there’s no one to blame for that but yourself.”

They were frozen in front of him. Ed turned around without even a single glance back and he pulled the spear from the wall. Blood dripped to the floor by the gallon. There was too much of it.

He turned around, spear in hand. He couldn’t find it in himself to care as he drove the spear straight through their own chest, through their heart. Their blood splattered over him as blood vessels burst, but he was already so covered in his own blood that he didn’t care.

He yanked the spear back out from their body, letting it drop, and set off to find those that locked him and had thought to try and kill him.

This may be a new development, his not dying, but he was too dizzy from blood loss and the constant pain in his body to do anything but hate his dad even more. Hohenheim couldn’t leave him alone, even after he had died from old age. Of course he left him behind the one thing that Edward never would have wanted.

Of course the blood of the philosophers stones in Hohenheim had given just enough to Ed that he could no longer die.


End file.
